Four Days
by ShipperWriter
Summary: Atlantis has been without power for four days now. Who's the first to lose it?


Hello, everybody! This fic was inspired by a discussion on the Sparky GW Forum about all the power outages in the Northeast US due to Hurricane Irene. The prompt: who would be the first to crack after four days of no power on Atlantis?

I've tried to make this as technologically correct as possible, please forgive for any mistakes!

And Stargate belongs to ... someone other than me. :-)

* * *

><p>Four days.<p>

Four days without her computer. Four days without any alarms to wake everyone up in the morning. Four days without any decent hot meals.

Four days since the coffee pot had made its last batch of coffee.

Dr. Elizabeth Weir wondered if this was hell.

She sat in her office gloomily. The sunlight provided enough light during the day, but seeing as how it had set almost an hour ago the only illumination at this hour was provided by a meditation candle that Teyla had lent her. The pile of papers had somehow bloated during that time and without her laptop, she was back to hand writing personnel evaluations.

That mixed with the coffee withdrawal was enough to make her loose it.

Dr. Rodney McKay had tried to explain at a staff meeting four days ago why using the specific set of solar panels hidden in an Ancient lab was crucially beneficial to helping power the City of Atlantis. Using his eccentric language, he made it sound like they were also capable of recharging the Zero Point Modules that provided the City with its power.

A distant memory of Rodney explaining how useful they were for recharging an electric golf cart came to mind, but she all too quickly dismissed it.

Too quickly, it seemed.

Blowing up part of a solar system was still on top of his list of mistakes; nevertheless, this was a close tie.

It turned out that after the solar panels were connected to the power grid, they overloaded one of the main power conduits that directly supplied power to the central tower. After a team was dispatched to the ZPM room to examine their main source of power, they determined that the ZPM had not been affected in any way. The Mark II naquadah generators were still online, but with the damage done to the power conduits they were close to overloading as they attempted to feed power through other lines which couldn't handle the amount of energy trying to run through them.

The decision had been made to shut down the ZPM and the naquadah reactors to conserve power. Knowing the luck of this place, they were amazed that the Wraith or Replicators hadn't launched a surprise attack on them in their vulnerable state. Thankfully, Rodney and Zelenka quickly found a temporary bypass for the shields and chair if the need arose.

So as they worked to restore complete power to Atlantis, the city lost its energy, and the people lost their minds.

Rodney had been the first to go, about 6 o'clock in the morning on this particular day. When Elizabeth had walked to his lab for a report, Radek Zelenka was the only one there, informing the expedition leader that Rodney had muttered something under his breath and marched out of his lab without another word, even leaving his beloved tablet behind.

When Colonel Sheppard finally found him, he was writing on one of the windows in his quarters in code, claiming to have found the cure for cancer.

After examining it, Zelenka sadly informed them that it wasn't the miracle McKay alleged it was. It was the chemical ingredients for an epi-pen.

Elizabeth groaned as her eyes strained with the lack of light, signing off on the final file. With a satisfied smile, she leaned back and stretched in her chair, letting her body relax as the worries of the day began to fade.

Now she just had to make it back to her quarters without killing herself.

Picking up the candle, she walked out into the control room. "How is everything tonight?" she asked the technician on duty.

Chuck Campbell was leaning back in his chair, playing a game of cards atop the console with three other technicians. He glanced up at her, quickly looking back to the game. "Quiet and dark. Just like the last three nights," he added.

She chuckled. "True."

The control room was void of nonessential personnel. With the lack of power, they had established a curfew. If you were not on duty, it was decreed, you should remain in your quarters or bunk up with a nearby neighbor for the remainder of the power outage.

Thankfully, the weather was cooperating with their situation; they could open the windows at all times and enjoy the cool breezes, keeping the city at a reasonable temperature without everyone having to take extreme measures.

Such as stripping in the middle of a staff meeting.

As Elizabeth slowly made her way to her quarters, she recalled a particularly hot summer day last year when the ventilation had ceased working. Everyone was sweating so badly during the meeting, they eliminated all layers of clothing that were a hindrance.

For John, Rodney, and Ronan, that included shirts.

She didn't mind when John and Ronan sat back down. When Rodney resumed speaking at the front table and was animatedly moving around, however, Elizabeth was seeing the "truffle-shuffle" from "The Goonies" in her mind's eye.

Why did that have to be the movie that John had picked for movie night that week?

Just then, a phantom breeze blew down the corridor, removing the flame on her candle and rendering her completely blind.

She cursed silently.

As she rounded the corner to her room, she noticed a shadow standing on the other side of her door frame. She let out a sigh of relief as the eccentric hair was outlined in light from a nearby window at the top of the wall. "And how was your day, Colonel?" she asked in greeting, tilting her head at him as she set the candle on the ground.

John just shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Busy."

Elizabeth crossed her arms, glaring mischievously at him. "Busy? How so?"

A slight blush crept up his face. "I went surfing," he admitted with a cringe.

Her only reprimand was, "And you didn't take me with you?"

John swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in the process. "I kinda thought you'd be busy running the place. Ya know."

"There is no power. No missions. No _Daedalus_. There isn't much to _run_ at the moment," she replied, letting her arms fall to her sides.

As her eyes adjusted to the light, his choice of clothes for the day became visible. He was wearing a black wet suit for a shirt, along with a black and blue pair of swim trunks. The pair of sandals on his feet completed the outfit.

She repressed a smirk, thankful that he couldn't see her in the darkness. "So I assume you were just checking to make sure that I got to my quarters in one piece?"

John ran a hand nervously through his hair. "Uh, yeah. Unless you needed anything else?" he added, voice deepening as he spoke.

Her heart started racing. They had been toying with each other off and on for a few weeks now, and the tension kept increasing with every little flirtation. The tone of his voice made her want to pull him into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

She promptly blinked the thought away and shook her head. "Um, no. I'm fine. I just … need a shower. Which will be cold," she reflected after glancing at the non-existent lighting above their heads.

John smiled a little. "Or you could come take a swim with me?"

"John, it's past sundown."

"I can put the lights on from the pier."

"What about sharks, or other sea animals?" she queried, opening the doors to her quarters.

He walked in behind her as she removed her shirt. As she heard an uncomfortable John clearing his throat behind her, she pivoted around, turning on the flashlight next to her bed. It showed the white camisole that she had been wearing underneath her red work shirt. She opened her drawers, telling him, "Let me grab some shorts."

Even in the dark, she could hear the smirk in his voice. "No one's gonna know what you're wearing."

She let out a laugh, then cleared her own throat, trying to erase any signs of awkwardness as she rifled through her clothes, finally finding a pair of short black shorts.

"Tell you what," he said, stepping closer to her in the dim light, reaching for the zipper at the throat of his shirt. "If it'll make you feel any better, I'll leave my shirt here." He reached for the hem and, in an all too easy move, his black shirt was lying on the floor next to Elizabeth and his tanned, yet white skin shone through the dark like a beacon. "That way," he said, slowly pacing towards her, "I'll be easier to grab when you think you see a shark."

One corner of her mouth tilted upwards. "Why leave your shirt here? Why not take it with you? After all, your quarters are half the distance to mine from the pier."

"What, you didn't know?" he asked, giving her his best puppy dog eyes. "The hallways of Atlantis are haunted at night when the power goes out. Legend has it that a scientist whose parents were gender confused when they named him will roam the corridors at night, looking for innocent victims."

As she found herself giving in, following John to the pier for a late night swim, and returning to her quarters with her hands buried in his hair, his lips hot on hers, she reflected that maybe Rodney wasn't such a horrible person after all.

FIN.


End file.
